Childish Gambino Makes His AR Debut

Google’s Playground for Pixel introduces a Playmoji character of the hit rap & RnB sensation.

No matter how you slice it, Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino, is arguably one of the fastest-rising creative minds of our generation. Whether it’s his hit television show Atlanta that perfectly dances the line between drama and comedy, or his rapidly growing music career composed of thought-provoking compositions, it’s hard not to respect a creator willing to take so many risks in the pursuit of originality.

Image Credit: Google Playground

Determined to remain on the forefront of everything from music to technology, Glover teamed up with Pixel to bring the genre-bending artist to the companies augmented reality camera mode, Playground, in the form of an interactive Playmoji character.

Image Credit: Google Playground

Powered by ARCore for Android, Playmoji characters are advanced AR stickers capable of reacting to a users actions and expressions in real-time via machine learning. While in selfie mode, Glover’s character will react to your expressions, such as when you make a frown or crack a smile.

Using the front-face camera, you can watch the provocative rapper get down to three of his biggest tracks, “Redbone,” “Summertime Magic,” and “This is America’; all of which animated with incredible accuracy thanks to the assistance of Glover’s music video choreographer, Sherrie Silver, the mind behind the incredibly addictive dance featured in “This is America.”

The Childish Gambino Playmoji character is available now via Playgrounds on the Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL, Pixel 3, and Pixel 3 XL. I will personally be taking this opportunity to spend my Friday afternoon embarrassing myself in front of my coworkers with the worst side-by-side performance of “Redbone” they’ve ever seen.